The father of the twins is HIV-positive, and according to an Associated Press interview, He said that his motivation for the experiment was “to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child that might be protected from a similar fate.” Decades of research have revealed that CCR5 is a gene that allows HIV to infect a cell. In fact, there is a naturally occurring mutation called CCR5-delta 32 that is found in about 15 percent of people with European heritage, and individuals with two copies of this mutation are resistant to HIV infection. He used the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool to edit CCR5, disable it, and render Lulu and Nana resistant to HIV infection forever.

CRISPR/Cas9

CRISPR/Cas9 as a research tool is relatively new, and more research is needed to understand the boundaries of safe use for human therapy. For these reasons, editing human genes beyond laboratory cell lines or embryo stages of development has been banned in many countries. He proceeded with this work despite a ban in China, and the Chinese government has since ordered an “immediate investigation”. He has confirmed there is a second pregnancy underway with gene-edited embryos, and others could soon appear. Supporters of genetic engineering are excited, but critics of He’s experiments believe that the potential risks outweigh any benefit to be gained. Besides the fact that human gene editing as a therapeutic tool was done in secret, Lulu and Nana would have to live with the consequences and be the harbingers of an uncertain future. Now that this claim has been made, society must prepare for the possibility of genetically engineered humans.

The Cartagena Protocol

Though the wider impacts will play out over time, an immediate concern comes from the international agreement that guides the use and regulation of genetically modified organisms. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity defines a living modified organism (LMO) as one that “possesses a novel combination of genetic material obtained through the use of modern biotechnology” that is “capable of transferring or replicating genetic material.” Lulu and Nana would fall within the definition of an LMO, and for the first time, most if not all regulations mentioned in the Cartagena Protocol apply to humans.

The Protocol allows states to ban imports of living modified organisms if they feel there is not enough scientific evidence of the safety of a product and it requires exporters to label shipments containing them. Under these rules, will Lulu and Nana be prevented from leaving China and traveling abroad? As LMOs, would their reproductive rights be regulated for safety reasons according to the Cartagena Protocol?

The future of genetically engineered humans requires revisiting international agreements and the creation of new laws that protect society and individuals. As the future of genetically engineered humans begins to unfold, the UN Convention of Biological Diversity, scientific societies, and society at large need to come up with solutions. Should the Protocol include a special section with rules and regulations applicable to genetically altered humans, or perhaps exclude them entirely? In its current form, the Cartagena Protocol is inhumane because some of its rules and regulations would violate human rights. For now, we wish the best for Lulu and Nana in the new era that they signal. We hope they will be treated with the respect and dignity that all humanity deserves.

The United States is undergoing a demographic shift in which the white population is aging while the younger generation grows more diverse. Although population estimates predict that white Americans will make up less than 50 percent of the population by 2045, nonwhite public school students already comprise more than 50 percent of the student body. This accelerated shift in the racial and ethnic composition of public schools, coupled with research showing the benefitsto students from having nonwhite teachers, implies an acute need to diversify the teaching profession.

In light of these quickly changing demographics, our new report published through Brookings Mountain West delves into the diversity of the teacher workforce in the Mountain West region. The states in this region (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) have experienced rapid population growth and a substantial influx of nonwhite racial and ethnic groups in recent decades. These features put them at the vanguard of demographic change that the nation as a whole will be facing in coming years, and they make the region an interesting case study of teacher diversity—offering lessons to policymakers looking to diversify the workforce in the face of continued demographic change.

Growing racial diversity creates growing demand for teacher diversity

In the report, we use five waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey and the 2016 American Community Survey to plot student and teacher demographic trends from 1993 to 2016 in the Mountain West states. These trends show how the diversity in the teacher workforce has evolved slowly as the student population has changed more rapidly.

Figure 1: Student and teacher demographics in the Mountain West

The charts in the top row of Figure 1 show that in all five states the share of nonwhite students, particularly Hispanics, has increased over the past 20-plus years. Both the initial share of Hispanic students and their growth rate varies by state. For example, the share of Hispanic students in New Mexico has always been large, accounting for nearly half of all students in 1993, and the growth of this group’s share has been positive but modest over the last 25 years. Meanwhile, Hispanic students in Nevada accounted for less than 20 percent of students in 1993, and this subgroup has seen dramatic growth since then, now constituting nearly 50 percent of all students.

Looking now at the share of nonwhite teachers across the bottom of Figure 1, we again see different trends arising across states. Due to the adult population being much more white than the rising generation of children under 18, it is not surprising that the teacher workforce is more white than the student body they serve in each of the five states. The trends presented here show that in all states nonwhite teachers are a scarce resource. However, some states are performing better on teacher diversity than others. While New Mexico and Arizona are leading the region, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah are struggling to keep pace with changes in the student population.

Next, we explore how the Mountain West states are doing in their recruitment and retention of nonwhite teachers in comparison to white applicants and the rest of the U.S. We find two noteworthy ways in which the Mountain West is clearly lagging behind.

First, a major source of diverse teachers in the rest of the U.S. is growing less racially diverse in Mountain West states. Alternative certification programs have been documented as a key source for attracting nonwhite and male applicants into the profession; however, we find that states in the Mountain West are diverging from this general pattern. Figure 2 shows the percentage of novice teachers (with three or fewer years of experience) who have entered teaching through a non-traditional route.

Nonwhite entry rates through alternative certification sit notably lower in the Mountain West states than in the rest of the U.S. In 2015, 20 percent of nonwhite novice teachers in the Mountain West enter the profession through non-traditional pathways, while 40 percent did in the rest of the country. Moreover, alternative entry rates in these states have declined among minorities and increased among whites such that their relative positions have reversed by 2015. By comparison, these entry rates are essentially flat in the rest of the U.S. for the eight-year span of these surveys. It is unclear why this source of racial diversity in the rest of the U.S. is becoming less diverse in the Mountain West states, but these trends warrant closer scrutiny if states intend to make progress toward parity in the region.

Second, we find evidence that nonwhite teachers leave Mountain West schools at elevated rates. In Figure 3 we show that the rate at which nonwhite teachers in the region left the profession in the 2012-13 school year is nearly three times higher than the one observed among both white teachers in the region and nonwhite teachers in the rest of the U.S. Though not pictured here, it’s worth noting that rates of moving between schools is equal for nonwhite teachers in both the Mountain West and the rest of the U.S. (11 percent). Thus, the high attrition rate observed in the Mountain West is not countered with lower mobility across schools and appears to be excessively high attrition unique to the region.

Figure 3: Percent of teachers who leave the profession

We have previously documented that attrition rates for nonwhite teachers are higher than attrition rates for white teachers in the U.S. Figure 3 suggests that attrition gaps in the Mountain West region alone may be responsible for these nationwide gaps. Whether it is creating more supportive work environments for nonwhite teachers, paying teachers in high-need schools more (which will benefit the disproportionately nonwhite teachers in them), or any other number of strategies, something clearly must be done to counter the hemorrhaging of nonwhite teachers from Mountain West classrooms.

Finally, though the demographic shifts in the Mountain West region are more acute than those observed in most other states, they are not unique to the region. Indeed, we expect that eventually most states in the rest of the country will face similar demographic transitions in their populations, though perhaps on a slower timeline. As a result, states across the country will need to work through multiple avenues if they seek to not simply keep pace with student diversity, but also intend to move closer to racial parity between teachers and students.

Over two decades, Poland experienced the most stable high growth in the EU with an average rate of 3.7 percent a year, earning it the nickname of the European Tiger. This achievement was even more remarkable because it was inclusive: jobs and wages increased, inequality across income groups and regions remained low, and poverty declined.

But Poland’s rapid economic ascent created new challenges. The creative destruction on which the growth process was based also caused massive social changes that challenged citizens’ resilience. Workers moved from farms to factories and then to offices, with a significant increase in temporary or “junk” contracts and relatively limited social assistance. Together with automation trends, and its adverse impact on low-skilled jobs, many working-class families faced heightened anxiety and uncertainty about their future.

And while workers responded to the incentives coming from market competition by increasing labor productivity, Polish wages remained among the lowest in the EU. In 2015, the average hourly labor cost (excluding agriculture and public administration) was €25.00 in the EU, but just €8.60 in Poland, placing it in the bottom six of the EU28 countries. And the convergence with wages in Germany—its immediate neighbor to the west and an important destination for its workers—is occurring only slowly; productivity growth and real wages tracked each other significantly more in Germany than in Poland. For instance, between 2000 and 2016, Polish labor productivity (the output of goods and services per hour worked) grew by about 51 percent, but compensation for workers grew only 33 percent.

In addition, there is frustration even among those most favored by the economic trends. Polish people’s aspirations and perceptions grow as welfare improves: catching up with high-income economies in the EU, and in particular with Germany, is perceived by many to be frustratingly slow. This includes catching up on governance in the public sector, particularly in government effectiveness and accountability to citizens with the delivery of public services.

And it does not help that, as in the rest of Europe, there has been a loss in confidence in the EU, a key external anchor of Poland’s reforms. Accession and commitment to the EU’s acquis communautaire were key factors driving the vision and consistency of the reforms that propelled Poland into high income. But this anchor now faces challenges of its own:

Despite this [progress], many Europeans consider the Union as either too distant or too interfering in their day-to-day lives. Others question its added-value and ask how Europe improves their standard of living. And for too many, the EU fell short of their expectations as it struggled with its worst financial, economic and social crisis in post-war history (European Commission 2017:2).

The sources of growth that propelled Poland to high-income status and delivered major increases in prosperity have less scope now to bring about further large improvements in incomes. Many countries that reached high-income status have experienced relatively slow growth since. From the 1960s to the 1990s, only 10 countries entered the high-income country (HIC) club and had average annual GDP per capita growth close to or above 2 percent (see Figure 1).

Addressing these challenges in the present global context, is no small undertaking. Like the rest of the world, Poland now faces a different global context—one of lower growth and greater uncertainty. Manufacturing is less labor intensive than before. The fourth industrial revolution, characterized by the automation of production processes, is causing the loss of significant numbers of medium-skilled workers in the developed world.

The experience of consolidated high-income economies provides the following insights for Poland going forward (see Figure 2). First, better governing is needed to build more trust in government. This could be achieved by making public services more client-oriented, more transparent, and more efficient, and by involving citizens more directly in improving public service delivery. Second, sustaining sound macroeconomic policies will now need to include creating fiscal space to deal with the increasing pressures coming from aging and a more uncertain global context. Third, continuing to connect the country internationally to allow citizens to continue reaping the benefits of trade and integration implies ramping up investments in the appropriate hard and soft infrastructure. And the stance on migration can be more inclusive. Fourth, moving up the global value chains by focusing on the quality of products and services through more concerted support to innovation for it to become a key driver of growth. Finally, including all citizens means continuing to expand investment in quality education and health care for all. It also means striking a better balance between job security and labor market flexibility, supporting workers between jobs, targeting social spending to aging and vulnerable parts of population, and ensuring progressivity in the tax system.

Figure 2. Insights for Poland based on the experience of consolidated high-income economies

And finally, as the country rises to meet these challenges, it should make sure that it guards the shared vision and long-term policy continuity that have served the country so well in the past.

U.S.-Turkish relations are enjoying a somewhat warmer moment, following the resolution of the crisis over American pastor Andrew Brunson and the recent dialogue to resolve differences over U.S. cooperation with the mainly Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria.

The differences between Washington and Ankara on this issue—and over Syria—are no doubt problematic. At the same time, it is important to recognize that Turkish-Russian relations are far from a real strategic partnership. Hence, there is a pragmatic solution that Washington can pursue to resolve the impasse over the S-400s.

The shadow of history and geopolitical divergences

The most recent Russia-Turkey rapprochement stems mostly from the challenges that instability in Syria creates for Turkish national security. Yet, despite current efforts in Ankara to deepen Russian-Turkish relations and overlook disagreements, Russia has traditionally been a geopolitical rival for Turkey. The annexation of Crimea shifted the naval balance in the Black Sea to Turkey’s disadvantage, a fact that Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov touted in 2016. Russia’s latest incident in the Kerch Strait will further consolidate Russian naval primacy in the Black Sea.

Turkey’s often unspoken (or overlooked) geopolitical rivalry with Russia is likely one of the main reasons why Ankara lists Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as strategic partners, while Russia is referred to just as a major trade partner.

Russian-Turkish cooperation in Syria

The Syrian conflict brought the two sides into a confrontation when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015 and Russia responded by imposing harsh economic sanctions on Turkey. Subsequently, both sides were able to patch up their differences and embarked on a process of rapprochement, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issuing a personal letter of regret for the incident to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Thanks to Russian consent, the Turkish military was able to conduct two cross-border operations in Syria: Operation Euphrates Shield against ISIS, and Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish YPG—the armed wing of the Kurdish political party Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria—in the Afrin region of northwestern Syria.

In 2015 and 2016—when terrorist attacks originating from Syria were occurring inside Turkey and the United States remained aloof to Turkey’s calls for a buffer zone in northern Syria—Russia emerged as Ankara’s only viable partner. The close cooperation with Turkey has played into Russia’s geopolitical goal of trying to peel Turkey away from NATO. Furthermore, this cooperation also helped Russia alleviate some of the military burden of supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime by getting Turkey to convince the moderate opposition to support a ceasefire and come to the negotiation table for a long-term solution.

Since January 2017, the two have coordinated 11 rounds of peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, together with Iran. In September, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan convinced President Vladimir Putin to support an extended ceasefire and construction of a demilitarized zone in the northwestern province of Idlib to preempt an onslaught by Syrian regime forces into the last opposition-held area. In so doing, regional geopolitical disagreements were conveniently sidelined. In the same vein, it is notable that Ankara has not joined Western sanctions on Russia and shied away from openly criticizing Russia over the recent Kerch Strait incident.

Turkey shares a long border with Syria and benefits from its current cooperation with Russia. However, in the long run, Putin and Erdoğan have divergent interests in Syria. Most importantly, Russia continues to back the Syrian Kurds and has hosted a PYD office in Moscow since early 2016 (despite its tacit approval of Turkey’s Afrin operation). Ankara considers the PYD an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an organization that has been fighting the Turkish state since the early 1980s and which Turkey, the United States, and NATO consider a terrorist organization. Moscow wants the PYD to be included in the negotiations to achieve a sustainable peace in Syria. So far, Turkey has resisted PYD’s participation in the “constitutional committee” critical to advancing a political settlement in Syria, a problem that U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura has acknowledged.

Second, it is unclear for how long Russia will tolerate the presence of Turkish troops in Syria. Putin has on various occasions clearly stated that he wants all foreign forces to eventually leave Syria, especially those without the invitation of the Syrian government. Third, the ceasefire over Idlib is very fragile, and it would hardly be surprising to see a green light from Moscow allowing regime forces and Iran-backed militias to launch an Idlib campaign—especially if Turkey fails to rein in extremist groups defined as terrorists by the Astana process. If Idlib turns into the next battlefield in Syria, Turkey risks facing another refugee crisis with dire humanitarian consequences and potential threats to Turkey’s stability and national security.

Finally, Ankara and Moscow will continue to disagree over the future of Syrian President Assad. Unlike Putin, Erdoğan continues to entertain the idea of a future Syria without Assad.

Don’t push Turkey away

A recent public opinion survey in Turkey shows that Turks do not see Russia as a friend, but do think Turkey and Russia can cooperate in international issues. Anti-Americanism, on the other hand, is on the rise and many see the United States as threatening to Turkey.

This dampens the prospects for a meaningful rapprochement between the United States and Turkey. On the Turkish side, a constant drumbeat fed to the public about, as one analyst put it, “exiting the West” further aggravates the relationship. Rampant anti-Americanism, often encouraged by the government itself, culminates in uncritical calls for closer relations with Russia. But despite the government’s domestic narrative—including accusations that NATO is a terrorist organization that threatens Turkey—Ankara has given no sign that it will break away from the trans-Atlantic alliance. Strikingly, Erdoğan has also stopped calling on Putin to help Turkey join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the place of the EU. Instead, the sheer reality that Turkey still needs the West—as noted by one former ambassador and deputy undersecretary of the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs—keeps Turkey reliant on NATO.

Turkey is stuck with having to buy S-400s out of the momentum built into Russian-Turkish rapprochement. But the move will in fact harm Turkey’s national security interests, since the full deployment and operationalization of the missiles would seriously undermine Turkey’s relationship with the United States and NATO. In short, Turkey cannot afford to sleepwalk out of the trans-Atlantic alliance for the sake of S-400s.

It’s important to see that while the S-400 purchase is significant, it is extremely unlikely to lead Turkey to a strategic switch toward Russia and away from the West. The United States must respond with that in mind, and should not react in a way that inadvertently pushes Turkey away from the trans-Atlantic alliance. That would only serve Russia’s interests, making it easier for Russia to pursue its geopolitical ambitions from the Baltic to the Black Sea and in the Middle East. Therefore, the issue of sanctioning Turkey and excluding it from the F-35 program should be approached cautiously. Instead, Washington, Ankara, and their NATO partners should double their efforts to find a pragmatic solution to the purchase of Russian S-400s. This could, for example, involve limiting the operationalization of missiles in a manner that does not jeopardize NATO member countries’ immediate security concerns, such as digital espionage and cyber hacking, rather than demanding at this late stage an outright cancellation of the purchase. Alternatively, the United States could revisit the possibility of selling Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Turkey that satisfies the latter’s long-standing demands on pricing and technology transfer. Given that conflict persists in the Middle East–with Iran, Syria, and others equipped with offensive missile capabilities—Turkey’s demands for a missile defense system will persist, too.

With this approach, two main goals can be achieved: Russia and Turkey can continue their pragmatic cooperation in Syria to promote relative calm and stability there, and Turkey’s missile purchase can be managed such that it doesn’t result in more fundamental problems in the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Almost one year ago, President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the biggest tax overhaul in the United States in over 30 years. While the law improved the revenue code in some ways, it falls short on three key dimensions – economic growth, fiscal sustainability, and distributional effects.

Among its many changes, TCJA cut the corporate rate tax from 35 percent to 21 percent, redesigned international tax rules, and created a deduction for non-corporate (“pass-through”) business income. It repealed personal exemptions, expanded the standard deduction, eliminated the tax on people who do not obtain adequate health insurance, and greatly weakened the estate tax. Most of the corporate provisions are permanent, while most individual income tax and estate tax provisions (except for health insurance) expire after 2025.

The TCJA will simplify tax filing for those who will now claim the standard deduction instead of itemizing, and some of its corporate tax cuts will create new incentives for investment. Overall, however, the law makes the tax code worse, not better.

Growth: Tax cuts raise long-term growth by improving incentives to work, save, and invest, but the deficits they create will offset some or all of those gains. Most studies indicate that the long-term impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the output produced in the United States – will be modest. The impact on Gross National Product (GNP) – the income that Americans receive – will be even smaller. Because the TCJA will encourage foreigners to invest in the United States, the returns they receive will reduce the amount of income that Americans will keep from their production. As a result, Americans will receive no increase in net income in 2028 from TCJA. Of course, TCJA stimulated the economy over its first year, but almost any tax cut that put money in people’s pockets would do that.

Fiscal effects: The CBO estimates that TCJA will increase deficits by $1.9 trillion through 2028, even after incorporating the impact of the new law on the economy. If lawmakers make the temporary provisions of TCJA permanent, the long-term effects will be even more dire.

Distributional Effects: TCJA gave most of its benefits to the wealthy and thus increased the inequality of income, which had already been growing for the past four decades. Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimates show that TCJA increased after-tax income in 2018 by 0.4 percent for households in the lowest quintile, compared with 2.9 percent for those in the top quintile, and even more for the top few percent of households.

About 80 percent of taxpayers did receive a direct tax cut from TCJA, but that is not the end of the story. Tax cuts eventually have to be paid for. When Donald Trump said he was giving Americans a tax cut for Christmas, for example, he neglected to add that they (or their children) eventually would receive the bill. It is unclear how TCJA will eventually be financed, but in the most likely scenarios, most households will end up worse off than had the TCJA never passed. In short, TCJA likely made the current generation of high-income households better off at the expense of lower-income households and future generations.

While the law improved the revenue code in some ways, it falls short on three key dimensions – economic growth, fiscal sustainability, and distributional effects.

A few other features of TCJA are worth noting. First, Congress passed the TCJA at a time when the United States had recovered from the Great Recession. Tax cuts are most useful when they stimulate the economy during times of recession. At a time of full employment and strong corporate profits, however, Congress should have increased taxes to address the long-term fiscal shortfall, not cut them. Second, the new pass-through business deduction and international rules were hastily constructed and create complexity, socially wasteful tax avoidance behavior, and uncertainty. Third, the law will raise the cost of health insurance and reduce coverage.

The future of TCJA remains uncertain. Nearly all of its individual tax changes will expire between now and 2026. Other provisions, such as its pass-through rules and many of the international provisions, may not stand the test of time. What is clear, though, is that TCJA took tax and fiscal policy in the wrong direction.

Gale is codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the author of Fiscal Therapy: Curing America’s Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future (Oxford 2019)

How do evidence-based education interventions sustainably scale, so that they reach more children and young people? And what is needed to support decisionmakers as they adapt and scale these interventions? While there is growing evidence around which educational strategies improve children’s learning, we know much less about how to translate this knowledge into policies and practices at large-scale. The Millions Learning project seeks answers to these questions by creating a stronger link between research and practice.

In this video, we introduce the Millions Learning Real-time Scaling Lab, an applied research project that aims to generate more evidence and provide practical recommendations to scale quality education interventions. In several countries around the world, the Center for Universal Education is partnering with government and local institutions to co-design and implement Real-time Scaling Labs to learn from, document, and support evidence-based interventions as they scale. Over the course of multiple years, the labs will regularly convene diverse stakeholders to develop or refine scaling plans, experiment with actions to address challenges and opportunities, and use real-time data to assess progress and make necessary adjustments. We will share key insights and findings across the Real-time Scaling Labs and with the broader international education community.

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released its 2013-2017 American Community Survey five-year estimates. Those data show that black-white neighborhood segregation varies widely across metropolitan areas, and has declined only modestly since the beginning of this century. Most white residents of large metropolitan areas live in neighborhoods that remain overwhelmingly white, and while black neighborhoods have become more diverse, this is largely due to an increase in Hispanic rather than white residents.

Black-white segregation remains high in northern metropolitan areas

Segregation levels between blacks and whites within metropolitan areas were very high through the middle part of the 20th century. After the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, black-white segregation began to decline, especially in growing parts of the country like Atlanta and Dallas to which blacks were relocating, where they faced less housing discrimination than in the past.

By the early 2000s, the highest levels of segregation continued to exist in northern metro areas where black population growth had levelled off and new development was sparse (Table 1). (The segregation index shown here varies from values of 0—complete integration—to 100—complete segregation).[1] Even in 2000, three metro areas had segregation indices exceeding 80, and nine more registered indices over 70. In metro areas like Detroit, Milwaukee, and New York, black populations tended to remain more concentrated in central cities, entrenched residential patterns persisted in contrast to those in growing parts of the South and the West.

By the 2013-2017 period, these areas still ranked among the most segregated, though segregation levels declined in each since 2000. Even so, at least three in four black residents in Milwaukee, New York, and Chicago would need to relocate in order to live in fully integrated neighborhoods with whites. In another four areas—Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and St. Louis—seven in ten blacks would have to relocate to live in a completely integrated neighborhood with whites.

These highly segregated areas, however, do not tell the full story. Black-white segregation levels vary greatly across the 51 major metropolitan areas with populations of at least 1 million, with Las Vegas registering the lowest value at just under 40 (Map 1) (download Table A). In 19 of these areas, segregation values are in the 60s, including a mix of large coastal areas (e.g. Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) and a smattering of areas in the nation’s interior. In 16 metro areas, segregation values are in the 50s, including Sun Belt growth centers such as Atlanta, Dallas, Tampa, and Charlotte, N.C. The nine areas that exhibit values below 50 include several other Southern migration magnets (e.g., Raleigh, N.C., Austin, Texas, and San Antonio) along with a few Western metros (e.g., Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Riverside, Calif.).

Black-white segregation fell in most metro areas since 2000

Overall, in 45 of these 51 metro areas black-white segregation has declined since 2000. Most only achieved modest reductions of 1 to 4 points. Yet 16 areas did show declines of 5 points or more. Detroit led the way with a decline of nearly 12 points, and other Midwestern and Northern metro areas including Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Minneapolis also posted large drops in segregation. Southern and Western metro areas with marked drops in segregation included Tampa, Fla., Louisville, Ken., Orlando, Fla., Houston, Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta, New Orleans, and Miami. Many of the latter areas registered noticeable black population gains from 2000 to 2017, and in most areas that experienced neighborhood segregation declines, black suburbanization facilitated greater integration.

While modest and widespread segregation decline continues an earlier trend, segregation levels greater than 50, which most areas exhibit, are still high by most standards.

Notwithstanding the significant progress in some metro areas, the average segregation level among these 51 places fell only modestly, from 62.8 in 2000 to 59.4 in 2013-2017. While this modest and widespread segregation decline continues an earlier trend, segregation levels greater than 50, which most areas exhibit, are still high by most standards.

Hispanics are making white and black neighborhoods more racially diverse

Another way to examine shifts in segregation is to look at the racial profiles of neighborhoods where the average white or black resident lives.[2]

In 2013-2017, the average white resident of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas lived in a neighborhood that was 72 percent white. That white share declined from 79 percent in 2000. On average, whites were exposed to less racial diversity than existed in these metropolitan areas overall, which were 64 percent white in 2000 and 55 percent white in 2013-2017. Much of the increase in white exposure to non-whites was attributable to a rise in Hispanic neighbors. The average white resident’s neighborhood was 12.2 percent Hispanic in 2013-17, up from 8.5 percent Hispanic in 2000. There were smaller increases in these neighborhoods for blacks, Asians, and other nonwhite racial groups.

This pattern of increased white exposure to non-white groups was consistent across metropolitan areas. In each of the 51 major metro areas, the average white resident lived in a neighborhood that was less white in 2013-2017 than in 2000 (download Table B). The largest shifts toward more diverse white resident neighborhoods—where the white exposure index dropped at least 10 percentage points—occurred in metro areas with growing Hispanic, black, and Asian populations, including Las Vegas, Orlando, Riverside, Miami, San Jose, Atlanta, Houston, Tampa, and Dallas. Clearly, the increased diversity in white resident neighborhoods is related to the growth and in-migration, metropolitan-wide, of other racial groups.

The overall trend toward greater neighborhood diversity occurred for blacks as well. (Figure 1). The average black resident of the 100 largest metro areas lived in a neighborhood that was 45 percent black in 2013-2017, down from 52 percent in 2000. (Blacks comprised 14 percent of all large metropolitan residents in both years.) Yet the white population share of that neighborhood remained almost exactly the same as in 2000. The increased diversity was mainly attributable to Hispanics, who comprised 17 percent of the average black resident’s neighborhood in 2013-2017, up from 12 percent in 2000.

This trend, too, was fairly pervasive across individual metropolitan areas, particularly in the 10 metro areas with largest black populations (download Table C). In most of these places (except Detroit and Chicago), much of the increased neighborhood diversity for blacks came from increasing numbers of Hispanics and other nonwhite racial groups. In Washington, D.C., for instance, the average black resident’s neighborhood saw its black population share drop from 58 percent to 54 percent, its white population share drop from 28 percent to 25 percent, and its Hispanic population share rise from 8 percent to 12 percent.

This analysis shows that black-white neighborhood segregation continued to decline pervasively, albeit modestly, between 2000 and the mid 2010-2020 decade. Significant regional differences persist in segregation levels and trends, emphasizing the value of a metropolitan view on the dynamics that contribute to—and inhibit—greater racial integration in American society.

1 Segregation levels are measured by the index of dissimilarity, which compares the distribution of blacks across a metropolitan area’s neighborhoods (census tracts) with the distribution of whites across those neighborhoods. Values vary from 0 (complete integration) to 100 (complete segregation) where the value indicates the percentage of blacks that would need to change neighborhoods to be distributed the same as whites.

2 The neighborhood (census tract) racial makeup for the average white (or black) resident in the metropolitan area is the weighted average of racial compositions of all neighborhoods in the metropolitan area, where weights represent the sizes of each neighborhood’s white (or black) population. This measure is sometimes referred to as an “exposure” measure.

The hope persists among tech and urban optimists for what Revolution LLC funder Steve Case calls “the rise of the rest“—the spread of tech companies into the Heartland.

In fact, recent announcements from Amazon, Google, and Apple—which are adding high-level jobs away from Seattle and the Bay Area—encourage such hope, with their hints that the tech giants are increasingly outgrowing their West Coast roots. Maybe Big Tech really is going to take its incessant talent hunt—and economic contributions—into new places and seed wider-spread economic vitality at a time of economic divides.

So what’s the reality when we look closer? Unfortunately, the story isn’t great, despite the recent news. Building on our last look at tech locational trends from March 2017, this new analysis of job-creation in four key digital services industries—software publishing, data processing and hosting, computer systems design, and web-publishing/search—finds again that while employment in tech is growing all over America, it really isn’t “spreading out” in terms of more cities gained increased shares of the tech pie. To the contrary: By our measure tech has continued to concentrate in a short list of metros during the last few years. The upshot: “Winner-take-most” in tech seems more the rule than the hoped-for “rise of the rest.”

While employment in tech is growing all over America, it really isn’t “spreading out” in terms of more cities gained increased shares of the tech pie.

To be clear, tech remains a compelling contributor to regional growth, and is in fact growing in new places. Digital services continue as a critical part of the national economy, and accounted for fully 80 percent of the nation’s advanced industries growth from 2015 to 2017 as employment grew 4.2 percent a year based on compound annual growth rate (CAGR) calculations.

Likewise, unexpected Heartland metros far from the coastal tech hubs like the Bay Area and Seattle and Boston surfaced as fast-growing tech centers in the recent period. Among the 100 largest U.S. metros, for example, Wichita, Kan.; Lakeland-Winter Haven, Fla.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; Boise, Idaho; and Orlando, Fla. all posted digital services growth of almost 10 percent a year over the same period. Midwestern stalwarts Kansas City, Mo.-Kan.; Madison, Wisc.; and St. Louis have all seen growth of more than 4 percent a year.

In short, there’s no doubt that tens of thousands of digital services jobs—central to the current artificial intelligence-driven tech boom—are sprouting up in more up-and-coming inland towns and bringing with them growth, hope, good pay, and attractive multiplier effects.

But, even though more cities are enjoying the growth of tech jobs, the sector is in fact concentrating even faster than it was a few years ago. This dynamic may reflect the rising importance of early-stage work in AI and machine learning. Or it might reflect the depressing persistence of groupthink. But at any rate, the numbers are eye-popping.

The top five metros with the highest share of digital services account for 28 percent of all of these jobs nationwide, and the top 10 metros with the highest share of digital services now encompass 44.3 percent of all of these jobs across the nation (based on their national shares of such sectors in 2017). The same top 10 metros captured almost half (49.1 percent) of the new tech jobs created from 2015 to 2017, with eight of these metros—including San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Austin—all increasing their share of the nation’s tech work. Those five metros alone captured 34 percent of all new digital services job growth and increased their share of the nation’s core tech employment by 1.2 percentage points.

Consider further that the super-rich tech folks—epitomized by San Francisco and San Jose—got even richer in the last two years. San Francisco alone added over a tenth of the entire nation’s new digital services jobs (over 25,000), and San Jose increased its share of the nation’s sector by nearly 18,000 jobs. Together, the two Bay Area hubs now encompass 10.7 percent of the nation’s digital services employment, up from 10.1 percent in 2015, 8.9 percent in 2013, and 7.5 percent in 2010. Note too that virtually all of Amazon’s and Apple’s newly announced workforce locations will take place in the biggest 10 of America’s “superstar” metros.

Only a few cities in the rest of the country truly “rose” in the last couple years by expanding their share of the nation’s digital services employment.

Notably, just nine of the largest 100 metros in the nation increased their share of the sector by more than one-tenth of a percentage point. These “winners” of the last few years included San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles, Austin, Denver, Orlando,Kansas City, and Charlotte.

With that said, 31 more cities at least increased their share of the nation’s digital services tech sector, albeit by less than one tenth of a percent. This group was led by Portland, Ore., and included up-and-coming coastal, interior, Midwestern, or Southern centers like Salt Lake City; Atlanta; Charleston, S.C.; San Diego; Nashville, Tenn.; Raleigh, N.C.; Provo, Utah; Grand Rapids, Mich.; Madison, Wisc.; and Greenville, S.C. Although many of these cities made steady progress, they are not significantly increasing their share of the national digital services sector or demonstrating significant competitiveness.

Another 60 cities actually lost share of the sector due to slow or negative growth. This list included numerous larger metros. In this regard, metros with the largest digital services employment share declines between 2015 and 2017 include such hot tech stories as Washington, D.C. and New York (which saw their shares of the national industry slip by -0.3 and -0.2 percentage points) as well as Houston, Philadelphia, and Dallas (all of which saw their shares slip by -0.2 points). Washington and New York, of course, needn’t worry too much about the future given Amazon’s recent decision to commence significant hiring for two new “headquarters” facilities. Nevertheless, the large number of places that lost share in the years 2015 to 2017 gives pause about dozens of important U.S. cities.

In short, these new data on the geography of tech are disconcerting for those thinking the U.S. would do better with a more balanced economic map.

Even while tech continues to raise hopes for broad transformation, it is continuing to reflect—and drive—the winner-take-most nature of the American economy.

World Bank staff spend their careers traveling from country to country. Most of these countries struggle to implement good policies and only a few succeed in reaching high-income status and sustaining growth. Take Turkey, which was growing towards high-income status but then experienced a slowdown; or Argentina, which reached high-income status but fell again to middle-income status riddled with policy uncertainty; or Romania, which has been unable to make the most of its EU membership and is suffering from governance issues. So when we came across Poland, which moved from middle to high income in less than 15 years, we wanted to take a closer look.

Over the last two decades, Poland experienced the most stable high growth in the EU, increasing the size of its economy by two and a half times and raising incomes. In 1994, the Poles had one-fourth less income than the Mexicans did. By 2014, the incomes of Mexicans had grown annually at about 0.9 percent (to $16,300); whereas Poles saw their incomes grow annually at 4.2 percent (to $25,000). In only 20 years, a Pole had become 50 percent richer than a Mexican.

Even more remarkable, this economic growth spurt was inclusive: jobs and wages increased, inequality across income groups and regions remained low, and poverty declined (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). Poland’s rapid ascent earned it the nickname “European Tiger,” in reference to similarly rapid ascents of the Asian Tiger economies.

Just good luck?

Poland and a handful of other economies that sustained high growth and graduated to high income focused on five key policy areas (see Figure 3):

Figure 3. The five key policy areas

1. Governing

It is important to get the institutions right—economic but also political—and guide reform with a shared vision. What sets Poland apart from the Asian Tigers is that it sustained its high growth with a vibrant democracy—one that supported a shared vision of a socially responsible market economy. Such a vision facilitated remarkable policy continuity spanning 17 governments since democratization. Reforms were sequenced effectively. Rapid liberalization was quickly followed by the creation of a support structure of basic democratic institutions at the local and national level. This support structure, together with the use of EU accession as an anchor, helped create a political consensus for deeper economic institutional change. And the inclusive political institutions at all levels of government also made the Poles pay their taxes, something other transition economies often struggle with but is a key pillar of sustainable public finances.

2. Sustaining

Ensuring macroeconomic stability is key to keep inflation and debt under control. Poland did this through a rules-based but flexible fiscal framework that limited deficits and debt, and a flexible exchange rate backed up by a credible inflation-targeting monetary policy. Poland’s effective restructuring, regulating, and supervising of the financial sector also ensured that banking crises were avoided.

3. Connecting

Integrating domestic markets into global markets helps increase firm competitiveness. Poland did this through rapid, but sequenced, integration: cutting tariffs first to help markets “get the prices right,” then tackling the more complex soft infrastructure in advance of EU accession, and finally making the most of EU hard infrastructure funds to connect domestic and external markets. Poland welcomed foreign direct investment enabling its domestic firms to participate in global value chains and exposed them to the global markets, which provided access to quality inputs, capital goods, and technological transfers.

4. Growing

Making a good use of the market helps reallocate resources as the country grows. Poland balanced factor accumulation—“perspiration”—and productivity improvement—“inspiration”—by allowing market forces to reallocate resources between sectors (structural transformation), within sectors (enabling the efficient firms to grow and the inefficient to shrink) and within firms (adopting better management and new technology): the increasing competition continuously strengthened the incentives for firms to improve, innovate and focus on comparative advantage. Poland not only facilitated markets’ reallocation of resources, it also helped expand them with focused reforms and investments in human capital, which resulted in large gains in educational performance.

5. Including

Providing opportunities for all promotes shared prosperity. Poland ensured broad-based access to quality education across income groups and regions. It increased business opportunities, but also earnings. Poland’s competitive and open markets provided business opportunities for firms and jobs for workers, but this was also complemented with regular raises in the minimum wage.

As was also the case in the handful of other economies that sustained high growth and graduated to high income, the rapid economic ascent has generated new challenges that require the continued attention of policymakers. This is covered in the report and in part two of this blog series.

The narratives, budgets, institutions, instruments, and partnerships of U.S. foreign assistance are all under scrutiny and evolving and adapting to global trends and domestic politics.

The result is an ongoing shake-up in America’s role in international development that is unlikely to settle down any time soon. Some changes are viewed very positively, like USAID’s reform, the creation of a new U.S. Development Finance Corporation and the enthusiasm among urban, state, and private sector leaders across America for advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and humanitarian priorities.

Other changes are subject to intense debate. The U.S. government no longer uses the frame of the SDGs in official positions, proposes sizable cuts in budget funds for foreign assistance, is not part of the global scientific consensus on climate change and the implications for development, is skeptical about the role of selected multilateral institutions, and wrestles with the tension between development assistance as an altruistic endeavor versus an effort that is fully aligned with narrowly defined U.S. economic and national security interests.

These and other pressing development challenges were discussed at the 2018 Brookings Blum Roundtable on “Invigorating U.S. Leadership in Global Development” this past August. A post-conference report summarizing the findings from that multi-day event can be found here.

Framing themes at the roundtable included:

The evolving nature of international networks devoted to solving global development problems;

The shifting balance between the activities of federal U.S. government agencies and a broader concept of American leadership, and;

The choices between U.S. and Chinese ideas and approaches to development.

The first two themes build around the notion that an evolution is underway from a traditional American emphasis on statecraft toward a web craft approach in which expanding networks across the country are forming (and growing) nodes of engagement with development issues—networks of local governments, civil society organizations, citizen groups, business coalitions, and academic institutions, for example. Some of these are arising as businesses and cities signal a determination to implement the SDGs, and, more specifically, as subnational coalitions of concerned people advance action to protect the economy and the next generation from the damaging effects of unchecked climate change.

The third roundtable theme focused on the nature of the choice between the U.S. and Chinese approaches to development cooperation, as the Middle Kingdom has become an assertive actor in the developing world, with an eye on the long game. Add to this the current tensions over trade and distrust over China’s use of technology and artificial intelligence to undercut America’s competitiveness, and the result is a potential for a new “great power competition” in the development arena.

The roundtable report identifies legislative areas where these themes become operationalized.